THE BACTRIAN CAMEL. 91 



THE BACTRIAN CAMEL, 



IN THE ROYAL MENAGERY, TOWER OF LONDON. 



The camel is a genus of quadrupeds belonging to the order of pecora, of which there are seven species. 

 The first is the dromedary or Arabian camel with one bunch or protuberance on its back ; the second 

 is the Bactrian camel, having two bunches on its back, but in all other respects resembling the drome- 

 dary. The generic characters of the camel are that it has no horns, having six front teeth in the 

 lower jaw, rather thin and broad. The laniarii are widely set, three in the upper and two in the 

 lower jaw ; and there is a fissure in the upper lip resembling a cleft in the lip of a hare. It has four 

 stomachs, feeds entirely on vegetables, and ruminates like the ox. The feet are armed with cloven 

 hoofs, partly like the hoof of a horse ; for a horny sole spreads from the heel forward under the foot, 

 uniting the middle part, and leaving the toes free. This horny sole is part of an elastic substance, 

 ■which, being bedded in two cavities of the foot, yields to the pressure of the'soil ; whilst the toes spread 

 upon touching the ground in the same way that the rein-deer's foot extends to present a large surface 

 to the snow. The foot of the camel is, however, adapted to tread upon a smooth surface, whether that 

 surface be hard or soft. 



The Bactrian camel, which is very common in Asia, is extremely hardy and in great use amongst 

 the Tartars and Mongols as a beast of burthen, from the Caspian sea to the empire of China. It bears 

 even so severe a climate as that of Siberia, being found about the lake Baikal, where the Burats and 

 Mongols keep great numbers. It is said to be found wild in the northern parts of India, and in the 

 deserts bordering on China, and is more esteemed for swiftness than the Arabian camel. In Arabia 

 they are trained for running matches, and in many places for carrying couriers, who can go above a 

 hundred miles a clay on them, and that for nine consecutive days over burning deserts, uninhabitable 

 by any living creature. The African camels are the most hardy, having more distant and more dreadful 

 deserts to pass over than any of the others, from Numidia to the kingdom of Ethiopia. In western 

 Tartary there is a white variety, very scarce, and sacred to the idols and priests. The Chinese have a 

 swift variety, which they call by the expressive name of Fong Kyo Fo, or camels with feet of the 

 wind. 



The riches of Arabia have consisted in camels from the time of Job to the present day. The 

 Patriarch reckoned 6000 camels among his pastoral treasures ; and the modern Arabs estimate their 

 ■wealth by the numbers of these useful animals : without them a great part of Africa would be wretched ; 

 by them the whole commerce is carried on through arid and burning tracts, impassable but by 

 beasts, which Providence has formed expressly for those scorching deserts. Their great powers of 

 sustaining abstinence from drinking, enable them to pass over unwatered tracts for many days, with- 

 out requiring the least liquid ; and their patience under hunger is such that they will travel many days 

 fed only with a few dates, or some small balls of bean or barley-meal, or on the miserable thorny plants 

 of the deserts. They seem to prefer wormwood, thistles, nettles, broom, cassia, and other prickly 

 vegetables, to the softest herbage. As long as they find plants to browse, they easily dispense with 

 drink. The faculty, however, of abstaining long from drink proceeds not from habit alone, but is 

 rather an effect of their structure. Independently of the four stomachs, which are common to rumi- 

 nating animals, the camels have a fifth bag, which serves them as a reservoir for water. This fifth 

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